Ostrogoths

The Ostrogoths were a Germanic people who were the eastern branch of the Goths. The Ostrogoths migrated southward from the Baltic Sea and established a kingdom north of the Black Sea during the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The Gothic empire existed until 370, when the Huns invaded Eastern Europe and subjugated the Goths and forced their king Ermanaric to commit suicide. After the Hunnic Empire was destroyed at the Battle of Nedao in 453 AD, the Ostrogoths migrated westwards towards Illyria and the borders of Italy, while some remained in Crimea (remaining independent into the 16th century). During the late 5th and 6th centuries, under Theodoric the Great, the Ostrogoths moved first to Moesia from 475 to 488 AD and then into Italy, conquering Odoacer's kingdom in 493 and creating the Ostrogothic Kingdom. In 535 AD, the Byzantine emperor Justinian invaded Italy with the goal of restoring the Western Roman Empire, and, although the Gothic king Totila initially managed to reconquer lost land, he died at the Battle of Taginae in 552. For 21 years, Italy was ravaged by warfare, and the remaining Ostrogoths were absorbed into the Lombards when they established a kingdom in Italy in 568.